200 Best Elisabeth Elliot Quotes

Elisabeth Elliot quotes: Elisabeth Elliot is an author and speaker who is known for her Christian-based novels, including The Life Giving Home and A Woman’s Worth. She is also a columnist for The Washington Post and a contributing editor to Christianity Today.

Elliot was born in England in 1951 and raised in a devout Christian family. She graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in English literature and began her writing career in 1976. She has since written over 20 books, which have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Elliot is known for her novels, which are often based on her own life experiences. Elliot is known for her novels which are often bought as gifts for friends and family. Her work often deals with themes of love, loss, and identity. Her novels have been praised for their well-developed characters and clever writing.

Elisabeth Elliot Quotes

“There is nothing worth living for, unless it is worth dying for.”

“God has promised to supply all our needs. What we don’t have now, we don’t need now.”

“You can never lose what you have offered to Christ.”

“The question remains, is God paying attention? If so, why doesn’t He do something?’ I say He has, He did, He is doing something, and he will do something.”

“Of one thing I am perfectly sure, God’s story never ends with ashes.”

“Leave it all in the hands that were wounded for you.”

“God never denies us our heart’s desire, except to give us something better.”

“Restlessness and impatience change nothing except our peace and joy. Peace does not dwell on outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands.”

“The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God, or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.”

“While I disparage the exercise of building one’s self-esteem, I indulge in it every time I imagine myself free from the defects I perceive in someone else.”

Famous Elisabeth Elliot Quotes

“Virginity is something that can be offered to God.”

“I have one desire now—to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.”

“The will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be much worse, but in the end it’s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger.”

“The most widely divergent sorrows may all be taken to the foot of the Cross and find there cleansing, peace, and joy.”

“Maturity starts with the willingness to give oneself.”

“I do know that waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts.”

“By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.”

“It is God to whom and with whom we travel, and while He is at the end of our journey, He is also at every stopping place.”

“Teach me never to let the joy of what has been pale, the joy of what is.”

“We cannot give our hearts to God and keep our bodies to ourselves.”

“Everything, if given to God, can become your gateway to joy.”

“The world cries for men who are strong, strong in conviction, strong to lead, to stand, to suffer.”

“We are not meant to die merely in order to be dead. God would not want that for the creatures to whom he has given the breath of life. We die in order to live.”

“If you believe in a God who controls the big things, you have to believe in a God who controls the little things.”

“If your goal is purity of heart, be prepared to be thought very odd.”

“One does not surrender a life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime.”

“Worship is not an experience. Worship is an act, and this takes discipline. We’re there to worship, in spirit and in truth.’ Never mind about the feelings. We are to worship in spite of them.”

“The world looks for happiness through self-assertion. Christian knows that joy is found in self-abandonment. “If a man will let himself be lost for My sake,’ Jesus said, “he will find his true self.’”

“Eve’s daughters are like flowers and no one can ever say they are unfolding. And what man can predict the consummate end of such a life when its ultimate center is Sharon’s Rose?”

“The hand of the Gardener holds the knife. It is His glory that is at stake when the best grapes are produced so we need not think He has anything personal against us, or has left us wholly to His enemy, Satan. He is always and forever for us.”

“Some of God’s greatest mercies are His refusals. He says no in order that he may, in some way we cannot imagine, say yes.”

“This grief, this sorrow, this total loss that empties my hands and breaks my heart, I may, if I will, accept, and by accepting it, I find in my hands something to offer. And so I give it back to Him, who in mysterious exchange gives Himself to me.”

“My heart was saying, “Lord take away this longing, or give me that for which I long.” The Lord was answering, “I must teach you to long for something better.’”

“The bigger our pain is now, the bigger that ‘weight of glory’ will be. It’s mysterious, it’s unimaginable, but it’s going to be, and for that we give thanks.”

Elisabeth Elliot Quotes to Endure Pain

“We’re not adrift in chaos. We’re held in the everlasting arms.”

“All things come from You, Lord, and of Your own we have given to You.”

“I do not make Him Lord, I acknowledge Him Lord.”

“Nothing that comes to me is devoid of divine purposes.”

“If my life is broken when given to Jesus, it may be because pieces will feed a multitude when a loaf would only satisfy a little boy.”

“Christ is sufficient. We do not need support groups for each and every separate tribulation.”

“If my life is surrendered to God, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand, but it would have been safer in mine!”

“We never know what God has up His sleeve. You never know what might happen; you only know what you have to do now.”

“Freedom begins way back. It begins not with doing what you want but with doing what you ought, that is, with discipline.”

“The disciplined Christian will be very careful what sort of counsel he seeks from others. Counsel that contradicts the written Word is ungodly counsel. Blessed is the man that walketh not in that.”

“To be a follower of the Crucified Christ means, sooner or later, a personal encounter with the Cross. And the Cross always entails loss.”

“Young people sometimes say to me, ‘I’ll just die if the Lord calls me to be a missionary,” or words to that effect.”

“Let not him who accepts light in an instant despise him who gropes months in the shadows.”

“It takes a while for revelry to turn to reverence, and much repetition of truth to eventually turn young zeal into habitual channels for good.”

“The conditions for discipleship begin with “dying”, and if you take the first step, you will find that you have indeed been called.’”

“I seek the lessons God wants to teach me, and that means that I ask why.”

“Worry is the antithesis of trust. You simply cannot do both. They are mutually exclusive.”

“Well, that sounds pretty brave and strong, doesn’t it? But listen to the last stanza, “But not of us this strength, O Lord, and not of us this constancy. Our trust is Thine Eternal Word, Thy presence our security.’”

“Whatever dark tunnel we may be called upon to travel through, God has been there.”

“How long, Lord, must I wait? Nevermind child, trust me.’”

Elisabeth Elliot Quotes on Loneliness in Life

“Loneliness is a required course for leadership.”

“Lonely? Give it to Jesus. Loneliness itself is material for sacrifice.”

“Pray when you feel like praying. Pray when you don’t feel like praying. Pray until you feel like praying.”

“God withholds blessing only in wisdom, never in spite or aloofness.”

“Of all things difficult to rule, none were more so than my will and affections.”

“A little quiet reflection will remind me that yes to God always leads in the end to joy.”

“God’s command ‘Go ye, and preach the gospel to every creature,” was the categorical imperative. The question of personal safety was wholly irrelevant.”

“Does God ask us to do what is beneath us? This question will never trouble us again if we consider the Lord of heaven taking a towel and washing feet.”

“It seems disrespectful to me to see ladies in church in very short skirts or skimpy, sleeveless tops. I would imagine that it could be distracting to men who are trying to keep their minds on God.”

“Failure means nothing now, only that it taught me life.”

“The Lord’s decrees His promises, His plans, His every word, stand fast, no matter what news we receive.”

“To ask why implies a conviction that there is a reason somewhere. Somebody must be responsible for this.”

“What is good, it is generally assumed, ought to make us feel good. For example, if it is the will of God, we will feel good about it. This is not always the case. Jonah had no good feelings about going to Joppa.”

“At the Cross of Jesus, our crosses are changed into gifts.”

“Among the most joyful people I have known have been some who seem to have had no human reason for joy. The sweet fragrance of Christ has shown through their lives.”

“It is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself.”

“Life becomes not only far simpler, but surprisingly joyful and free.”

“God’s presence did not change the fact of my widowhood. Jim’s absence thrust me, forced me, hurried me to God, my only hope and my only refuge.”

“Lead me, Lord, to the rock that is higher than me. Let me hear your words, give me grace to obey, to build steadily, stone upon stone, day by day, to do what You say. Establish my heart where floods have no power to overwhelm, for Christ’s sake. Amen.”

“When the time comes to die, make sure that all you have to do is die!”

“Sentimentality takes the place of theology. Our reference point will never serve to keep our feet on solid rock. Our reference point, until we answer God’s call, is merely ourselves. We cannot possibly tell which end is up.”

“A broken heart is a reminder of our only source of power.”

“Lord, deliver me from the urge to open my mouth when I should shut it. Give me the wisdom to keep silent where silence is wise. Remind me that not everything needs to be said, and that there are very few things that need to be said by me.”

“The Word of God I think of as a straight edge, which shows our own crookedness. We can’t really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture.”

“She is free not by disobeying the rules but by obeying them.”

“When ours are interrupted, His are not. His plans are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always, including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable.”

“The willingness to be and to have just what God wants us to be and have, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else, would set our hearts at rest, and we would discover the simpler life, the greater peace.”

“Teach me to treat all that comes to me with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all.”

“The only basis of peace is the cessation of the conflict of two wills, my will versus God’s.”

“Is the distinction between living for Christ and dying for Him so great? Is not the second the logical conclusion of the first?”

“It would seem that unless we see through and beyond the physical, we shall not even see the physical as we ought to see it, as the very vehicle for the glory of God.”

“He makes His ministers a flame of fire. Am I ignitable? God delivers me from the dreaded asbestos of other things.’”

“Are we so childish—I do not say childlike—as to think that a God who could scheme a Jesus-plan would lead poor pilgrims into situations they could not bear?”

“A little leavening of dissatisfied temper will spread through a group and change outlooks.”

“The question is simply, “Who is your master?” Once that’s settled, you ask whether any word has been spoken. If it has, you have your orders.”

“The gate is narrow but not life. The gate opens out into largeness of life.”

“Insistence that both lead means there won’t be any dance.”

“Needs multiply as they are met. Woe to the man who would live a disentangled life. Be on guard, my soul, of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth!”

“He is not all we would ask for, if we were honest, but it is precisely when we do not have what we would ask for, and only then, that we can clearly perceive His all-sufficiency.”

“Christianity teaches righteousness, not rights. It emphasizes honor, not equality. A Christian’s concern is what is owed to the other, not what is owed to himself.”

“Is it more important to understand than to obey? Is it more important to me to know than to believe?”

Read Also: Feeling Lonely Quotes about Relationships

Elisabeth Elliot Quotes on Suffering

“The deepest things I have learned in my own life have come from the deepest suffering. And out of the deepest waters and the hottest fires have come the deepest things I know about God.”

“There is in fact no redemptive work done anywhere without suffering.”

“Things to do in suffering; recognize it, accept it, offer it to God as a sacrifice, and offer yourself with it.”

“The Cross means suffering. Suffering’s meaning is to be learned through the Cross.”

“Whatever is in the cup that God is offering to me, whether it be pain and sorrow and suffering and grief along with the many more joys, I’m willing to take because I trust Him. Because I know that what God wants for me is the very best.”

“If the Cross is the place where the worst thing that could happen happened, it’s also the place where the best thing that could happen happened. Ultimate hatred and ultimate love met on those two crosspieces. Suffering and love were brought into harmony.”

“God will never disappoint us. If deep in our hearts we suspect that God does not love us and cannot manage our affairs as well as we can, we certainly will not submit to His discipline. To the unbeliever the fact of suffering only convinces him that God is not to be trusted, does not love us. To the believer, the opposite is true.”

“But safety, as the Cross shows, does not exclude suffering. I learned that trust in those strong arms means that even our suffering is under control. We are not doomed to meaninglessness. A loving purpose is behind it all, a great tenderness, even in the fierceness.”

“Suffering creates the possibility of growth in, holiness, but only to those who, by letting all else go, are open to the training—not by arguing with the Lord about what they did or did not do to deserve punishment, but by praying, “Lord, show me what you have for me in this’”

“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering.”

Elisabeth Elliott Quotes on Death

“The principles of gain through loss, of joy through sorrow, of getting by giving, of fulfillment by laying down, of life out of death is what the Bible teaches, and the people who have believed it enough to live it out in simple, humble, day-by-day practice are people who have found the gain, the joy, the getting, the fulfillment, the life.”

“But little deaths have to be died just as great ones do. Every reminder that aroused a longing had to be offered up.”

“Does our faith rest on having prayers answered as we think they should be answered, or does it rest on that mighty love that went down into death for us?”

“We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world crushed, broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We receive His poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of suffering with Him, may then pour ourselves out for others.”

“To God, nothing is finally lost. All the scriptural metaphors about the death of the seed that falls into the ground, about losing one’s life, about becoming the least in the kingdom, about the world’s passing away—all these go on to something unspeakably better and more glorious. Loss and death are only the preludes to gain and life.”

“The first principle is that of the Cross; life comes out of death. I bring God my sorrows, He gives me His joy. I bring Him my losses, he gives me His gains. I give Him my sins, He gives me His righteousness. I bring Him to my death, He gives me His life.”

“If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used, we stunt the growth of the soul. What God gives us is not necessarily ours, but only ours to offer back to him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves. Many deaths must go into reaching our maturity in Christ, many letting goes.”

Elisabeth Elliott Quotes on Fear

“Sometimes, fear does not subside, and one must choose to do it afraid.”

“Must we always comment on life? Can it not simply be lived in the reality of Christ’s terms of contact with the Father, with joy and peace, fear and love full to the fingertips in their turn, without incessant drawing of lessons and making of rules?”

“If men and women were sure of their God there would be more genuine manliness, womanliness, and godliness in the world, and a whole lot less fear of each other.”

“Fear arises when we imagine that everything depends on us.”

Elisabeth Elliott Quotes Do the Next Thing

“‘Do the next thing.” I don’t know any simpler formula for peace, for relief from stress and anxiety than that very practical, very down-to-earth word of wisdom. Do the next thing. That has gotten me through more agonies than anything else I could recommend.”

“How often I am troubled about something that looms ahead, wondering how I am to cope when the time comes. Why do I not bring it at once to the Lord, who stands ready with the next grace for the next thing.”

“Does it make sense to pray for guidance about the future if we are not obeying the thing that lies before us today? How many momentous events in Scripture depended on one person’s seemingly small act of obedience! Rest assured; do what God tells you to do now, and, depending upon it, you will be shown what to do next.”

“But, in the words of a Portuguese proverb, “God writes straight with crooked lines,” He is far more interested in getting us where He wants us to be than we are in getting there. He does not discuss things with us. He leads us faithfully and plainly as we trust Him and simply do the next thing.”

“Sometimes life is so hard that you can only do the next thing. Whatever that is, just do the next thing. God will meet you there.”

“When you don’t know what to do next, just do the thing in front of you.”

“Heaven is not here, it’s there. If we were given all we wanted here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next.”

“The life of faith is lived one day at a time, and it has to be lived, not always looked forward to as though the real living were around the next corner.”

Prayer Elisabeth Elliot Quotes

“Things happen which would not happen without prayer. Let us not forget that.”

“And so it often is. Faith, prayer, and obedience are our requirements. We are not offered in exchange immunity and exemption from the world’s woes. What we are offered has to do with another world altogether.”

“If your prayers don’t get answered the way you thought they were supposed to be, what happens to your faith? The world says God doesn’t love you. The scriptures tell me something very different.”

“The work of God is done on God’s timetable. His answers to our prayers come always in time—His time. His thoughts are far higher than ours, His wisdom past understanding.”

“Possibly His very withholding is in order that the boy may learn, at this crucial juncture in his life, to turn to God in prayer for a deeply felt need.”

“The heart which has no agenda but God’s is the heart at leisure from itself. Its emptiness is filled with the love of God. Its solitude can be turned into prayer.”

“Cold prayers, like cold suitors, are seldom effective in their aims.”

“Prayer never evaporates. It sets into motion forces as inexorable and perhaps as unhurriable as a glacier, but when the Lord’s arm reaches down, no power in heaven or earth will frustrate Him.”

“If your faith rests in your idea of how God is supposed to answer your prayers, your idea of heaven here on earth or pie in the sky or whatever, then that kind of faith is very shaky and is bound to be demolished when the storms of life hit it. But if your faith rests on the character of Him who is the eternal “I am”, then that kind of faith is rugged and will endure.”

Famous Elisabeth Elliot Quotes

“The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the Church. And the wife is there to bless and support and help him.”

“No marriage can survive without forgiveness. Marriage is a long-term commitment between two sinners.”

“If you are married, then accept that. Accept the husband that God has given you. If you are single, accept your singleness and take it as if today was the last day of your life. Don’t be looking constantly to the future.”

“But you will find yourself disarmed utterly, and your accusing spirit transformed into loving forgiveness the moment you remember that you did, in fact, marry only a sinner, and so did he.”

“A wedding is a celebration of marriage, of an institution ordained by God at the creation of man, to be entered into with solemnity as well as with joy.”

“Marriage teaches us that even the most intimate human companionship cannot satisfy the deepest places of the heart. Our hearts are lonely, until they rest in Him.’”

“God is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will certainly find what we so keenly long for.”

“It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.”

“Where does your security lie? Is God your refuge, your hiding place, your stronghold, your shepherd, your counselor, your friend, your redeemer, your Savior, your guide? If he is, you don’t need to search any further for security.”

Elisabeth Elliott Quotes on Faith

“Faith is not a feeling. Faith is willed obedience in action.”

“Faith is not merely feeling good about God, but a conscious choice, even in the utter absence of feelings or external encourangement to obey His word when He says, “Trust Me.” This choice has nothing to do with mood but is a deliberate act of laying hold of the character of God whose circumstances never change.”

“This job has been given to me to do. Therefore, it is a gift. Therefore, it is a privilege. Therefore, it is an offering I may make to God. Therefore, it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him. Here, not somewhere else, I may learn God’s way. In this job, not in some other, God looks for faithfulness.”

“There are those who insist that it is a very bad thing to question God. To them, ‘Why?’ is a rude question. That depends, I believe, on whether it is an honest search, in faith, for His meaning, or whether it is the challenge of unbelief and rebellion.”

“This is where faith begins—in the wilderness—when you are alone and afraid, when things don’t make sense.”

“Faith does not eliminate questions, but faith knows where to take them.”

“Don’t dig up in doubt what you planted in faith.”

“Faith’s most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith in vain.”

“Faith is not an instinct. It certainly is not a feeling, feelings don’t help much when you’re in the lions’ den or hanging on a wooden Cross. Faith is not inferred from the happy way things work. It is an act of will, a choice, based on the unbreakable Word of a God who cannot lie, and who showed us what love and obedience and sacrifice mean, in the person of Jesus Christ.”

“Well, that’s what faith is about, isn’t it? If you really believe that somebody loves you then you trust them. The will of God is love. And love suffers. That’s how we know what.”

Elisabeth Elliot Quotes Circumstances

“The spirit is liquid and easily flows and surges, sinking and boiling with the currents of circumstances. Bringing every thought into the obedience of Christ is no easy-chair job.”

“I beg women to wait. Wait on God. Keep your mouth shut. Don’t expect anything until the declaration is clear and forthright. And to the men I say be careful with us, please. Be circumspect.”

“The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.”

Elisabeth Elliott Quotes on Womanhood

“Stand true to your calling to be a man. Real women will always be relieved and grateful when men are willing to be men.”

“A man must at times be hard as nails, willing to face up to the truth about himself, and about the woman he loves, refusing compromise when compromise is wrong. But he must also be tender. No weapon will breach the armor of a woman’s resentment like tenderness.”

“A woman ought to be honest with a man who shows interest in her.”

“I took it for granted that there must be a few men left in the world who had that kind of strength. I assumed that those men would also be looking for women with principle. I did not want to be among the marked-down goods on the bargain table, cheap because they’d been pawed over. Crowds collect there. It is only the few who will pay full price. You get what you pay for.’”

“What sort of world might it have been if Eve had refused the Serpent’s offer and had said to him instead, “Let me not be like God. Let me be what I was made to be—let me be a woman?’”

“So, the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations— her gifts.”

“No woman who has not learned to master herself can be trusted to submit willingly to her husband. And that word willingly means that she does not merely resign herself to something she cannot avoid. It means that by an act of her own will she gives herself.”

“Unless a man is prepared to ask a woman to be his wife, what right has he to claim her exclusive attention? Unless she had been asked to marry him, why would a sensible woman promise any man her exclusive attention? If, when the time has come for a commitment, he is not man enough to ask her to marry him, she should give him no reason to presume that she belongs to him.”

“God might have given Adam another man to be his friend, to walk and talk and argue with if that was his pleasure. But, Adam needed more than the companionship of the animals or the friendship of a man. He needed a helper, specially designed and prepared to fill that role. It was a woman God gave him, a woman, meet, fit, suitable, entirely appropriate for him, made of his very bones and flesh.”

“Women still dream and hope, pin their emotions on some man who doesn’t reciprocate, and end up in confusion.”

“Supreme authority in both church and home has been divinely vested in the male as the representative of Christ, who is Head of the church. It is in willing submission rather than grudging capitulation that the woman in the church, whether married or single, and the wife in the home find their fulfillment.”

“The women of the Band were learning that if the Lord of Glory took a towel and knelt on the floor to wash the dusty feet of His disciples, then no work, even the relentless and often messy routine of caring for squalling babies, is demeaning. To offer it up to the Lord of Glory transforms it into a holy task.”

“The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian, makes me a different kind of woman.”

“We are women, and my plea is, let me be a woman—holy through and through, asking for nothing but what God wants to give me, receiving with both hands and with all my heart whatever that is.”

“I believe a woman, in order to be a good wife, must be—among other things—both sensual and maternal.”

“I remember what Jim wrote to me in one of his letters: “Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living.” And I think there are a lot of single women who are allowing their longing to slay the appetite of their living. They are not throwing their heart and soul into the will of God for today, because they are simply dying inside for something that God has not given them.”

“To understand the meaning of womanhood, we have to start with God. If He is indeed ‘Creator of all things visible and invisible,’ He is certainly in charge of all things. Visible and invisible, stupendous and minuscule, magnificent and trivial. God has to be in charge of details if he is going to be in charge of the overall design.”

“To me, a lady is not frilly, flouncy, flippant, frivolous, and fluff-brained, but she is gentle, she is gracious, she is godly, and she is giving. You and I have the gift of femininity. The more womanly we are, the more manly men will be, and the more God is glorified. Be women only, be only women, be real women in obedience to God.”

Elisabeth Elliot Quotes about Work

“Work is a blessing. God has so arranged the world that work is necessary, and He gives us hands and strength to do it. The enjoyment of leisure would be nothing if we had only leisure. It is the joy of work well done that enables us to enjoy rest, just as it is the experiences of hunger and thirst that make food and drink such pleasures.”

“Great longing was to have a single eye” for the glory of God. Whatever might blur the vision God had given her of His work, whatever could distract or deceive or tempt others to seek anything but the Lord Jesus Himself she tried to eliminate.”

“We are encompassed on all sides by the Almighty. His tender mercies are over all of His works, “Steadfast love surrounds him who trusts in the Lord,’ and ‘Underneath are the Everlasting Arms.” Over around, underneath. We are enfolded. Can you think of a safer place to be?”

“He is always doing something—the very best thing, the thing we ourselves would certainly choose if we knew the end from the beginning. He is at work to bring us to our full glory.”

“Jesus loved the will of His Father. He embraced the limitations, the necessities, the conditions, the very chains of His humanity as He walked and worked here on earth, fulfilling moment by moment His divine commission and the stern demands of His incarnation. Never was there a word or even a look of complaint.”

“A great many things determine how people live, and money is not at the top of the list. Choices are always available. What you choose will depend on how you see things: yourself, your work, your right to express taste and desire and personality, your understanding of the love of God as expressed in His creation and order and harmony.”

“There is no such thing as Christian work. That is, there is no work in the world which is, in and of itself, Christian. Christian work is any kind of work, from cleaning a sewer to preaching a sermon, that is done by a Christian and offered to God.”

“Lord, break the chains that hold me to myself; free me to be your happy slave—that is, to be the happy foot washer of anyone today who needs his feet washed, his supper cooked, his faults overlooked, his work commended, his failure forgiven, his griefs consoled or his button sewed on. Let me not imagine that my love for You is very great if I am unwilling to do for a human being for something very small.”

Elisabeth Elliott Quotes Busyness

“One reason we are so harried and hurried is that we make yesterday and tomorrow our business, when all that legitimately concerns us is today. If we really have too much to do, there are some items on the agenda which God did not put there. Let us submit the list to Him and ask Him to indicate which items we must delete. There is always time to do the will of God. If we are too busy to do that, we are too busy.”

“The Devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements—noise, hurry, and crowds. He will not allow quietness.”

“Today is mine. Tomorrow is none of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future, I will strain my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now.”

Elisabeth Elliott Quotes on Obedience

“Choices will continually be necessary and—let us not forget—possible. Obedience to God is always possible. It is a deadly error to fall into the notion that when feelings are extremely strong we can do nothing but act on them.”

“It is Christ who is exalted, not our feelings. We will know Him through obedience, not through emotions. Our love will be shown by obedience, not by how good we feel about God at a given moment. And love means following the commands of God. Do you love me? Jesus asked Peter. ‘Feed My lambs.’ He was not asking, “How do you feel about me?” for love is not a feeling. He was asking for action.”

“The willingness to sacrifice that springs from a loving heart rather than the desire for spiritual distinction is surely acceptable to God. But, as in the case of Abraham’s offering of his son Isaac, the sacrifice itself is not always finally required. What is required is obedience.”

“When obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love Him.”

“God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to.”

Elisabeth Elliott Quotes on Love

“Love is not touchy.”

“Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage.”

“Love is not possessive.”

“Until the will and the affections are brought under the authority of Christ, we have not begun to understand, let alone accept, His Lordship. The Cross, as it enters the love life, will reveal the heart’s truth.”

“Money holds terrible power when it is loved.”

“I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are honestly able to honestly to pray what He taught His disciples to pray, and they will be done.’”

“God never with olds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God’s refusals are always merciful—severe mercies at times, but mercies all the same.“

“You are loved with an everlasting love, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”

“For a Christian, the pattern is Jesus. What did he do? He offered himself, a perfect and complete sacrifice, for the love of God. And you and I should be prepared, also, to break bread and pour out wine for the world.”

“He puts those tears into His bottle, for He gave you the love that brings those tears and He made you so you could cry, and you cast it all on the rock that never moves.”

“I am not a theologian or a scholar, but I am very aware of the fact that pain is necessary to all of us. In my own life, I think I can honestly say that out of the deepest pain has come the strongest conviction of the presence of God and the love of God.”

“To love God is to love His will. It is to wait quietly for life to be measured by One who knows us through and through. It is to be content with His timing and His wise appointment.”

“The love of God did not protect His own Son. The Cross was the proof of His love, that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s Cross, though ‘legions of angels’ might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us, not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.”

“Love does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.”

“Love knows no limits to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that stands out when all else has fallen.”

“Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal.”

“Love is not anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own ideas.”

“But the question to precede all others, which finally determines the course of our lives is, ‘What do I really want? Was it to love what God commands, in the words of the collect, and to desire what He promises? Did I want what I wanted, or did I want what He wanted, no matter what it might cost?’”

“Experience had quickly taught her that she could not survive the storms without the anchor of the constraining love of Christ and what she called the “rock-consciousness” of the promise given her, ‘He goeth before.’”

“Learning to pray is learning to trust the wisdom, the power, and the love of our Heavenly Father, always so far beyond our dreams.”

“Either we are adrift in chaos or we are individuals, created, loved, upheld and placed purposefully, exactly where we are. Can you believe that? Can you trust God for that?”

Elisabeth Elliot is a well-known author who wrote the book “The Life Giving Home.” The book is about her journey from being a homeless teenager to becoming a successful author. Elisabeth’s story is inspirational and she has helped many people through her writing.